The first in a three-part look at the events that shaped Michael Hill from aspiring professional athlete into the Miami Marlins' head of baseball operations.

First in a three-part series on new Marlins' President of Baseball Operations Michael Hill.

Count Michael Hill among Omar Minaya's spot on projections. A long-time scout, former general manager, and current senior vice president of baseball operations for the Padres, Minaya was the Rangers' crosschecker when Hill was a senior at Harvard.

Minaya saw Hill during a pre-draft workout at Providence College in 1993 and liked the left-handed power and athleticism. The most telling note Minaya jotted down about Hill had nothing to do with his physical abilities.

"I did put that on his scouting report, that he would be a very good front office person," Minaya said.

The Marlins have found out for themselves, which is why owner Jeffrey Loria installed Hill as President of Baseball Operations to unify a disjointed front office. Hill knows the landscape, having negotiated it the last 11 seasons. The Marlins hired him as assistant general manager before 2003 and later promoted him to general manager, where he served as Larry Beinfest's second in command until Beinfest's dismissal at season's end.

Monday, Hill and his lieutenants head to the General Managers' Meetings in Orlando, where the process of improving a 100-loss team begins in earnest. Maneuvering through these gatherings is nothing new to Hill, a well-respected baseball man who has held just about every front office post since joining the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a scouting assistant in 1995.

Occupying a position of leadership is familiar territory as well. Whenever Hill hit a home run, scored a touchdown or hit a three-pointer, chances are he did it with the captain's 'C' on his jersey.

"In the process of signing him I say, 'Are you sure you want to play baseball?' " said Minaya, who drafted him in the 31st round. "He laughed and said, 'Yeah, I want to play.' I said, 'Listen, you could be President of the United States.' He said, 'Well, I want to play baseball.' "

Hill as a junior was set to captain the football team at Withrow High School, a 3,000-enrollment inner-city Cincinnati public school. The opportunity to attend Country Day, an elite prep school with an enrollment of 250, presented itself.

Churning out A's and already receiving letters from big-time college programs as a sophomore, Hill didn't see a reason to change.

"I was the big man on campus going into my junior year," Hill said. "You work through it as a freshman and sophomore, and then you reap the benefits as a junior and senior. Socially I was just getting into that. The thought of changing schools was not attractive to me."

Hill's parents, Ben and Irene, raised their three children to love two things above all others: the Lord and schoolwork. If the grades weren't satisfactory, forget sports. Mike watched his parents bench older brother, Ben, on one instance for that very reason.

They let Mike make the call about switching schools.

"It turned out being the best decision I ever made," Hill said. "I went from big-time athletics to a smaller school, but I was also going from a school where I don't even know what the graduation rate was to a school that was 100 percent graduation rate and they were putting multiple kids in Ivy League schools.

"When I got into that environment I was still able to flourish. I had my lumps when I first got there. I got my first 'B' and I'd never gotten one before."

It was for an essay Hill wrote on Lord of the Flies. Ms. Hickman had a reputation for not liking athletes. That didn't preclude her from going over Hill's work with him and detailing why it didn't merit an 'A.' She turned out being one of Hill's favorite teachers.

Athletically, Hill as a senior was a three-sport captain and was named All-City in football, basketball and baseball.

"I wish we could take some more credit for him," said Timothy Dunn, Hill's football and baseball coach at Country Day.

"He was a finished product. He always had that leadership quality about him. He came over here into a brand new situation and we had a pretty good team as it was. It took a little while, maybe a game or two, for him to figure out his place. He ended up being a star for that team and from then on.

"We're a pretty good academic school and he's obviously an accomplished student. I'm sure he would have been a success in life, but I don't think he would have gone to Harvard had he not come over."